Areiotis
The '''Areiotis '''were a race engineers that inhabited the Hemera system until their extinction by the Kiatocs during the Age of Pillaging. Known for producing such marvels as the largest radio telescope in the galaxy and the largest orbital solar panel array, the Areiotis were renown for their technology to teleport instantaneously across millions miles using traverable 4-dimensional wormholes. Physical Description The Areiotis were a hexapodal race of hairy reptiles characterized by a cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs that acts as a carapace. A fully-grown Areiotis could average between 80 cm (2.6 ft) and 100 cm (3.3 ft) when standing erect on its hind legs and could weigh on average between 45 kg (100 lb) and 57 kg (125 lb). The anterior end of the creature terminates with a single bulbous cephalic eye protruding from the neck.The posterior end of the creature terminates in a bifurcated, prehensile tail. The ventral mouth of the creature features a gnathobase system of bony ridges for grinding and sweeping food directly into the gut. Areiotis communicated primarily using an elaborate arrangement of specialized pigment cells on the exposed dorsal skin. They also utilized a sensitive olfactory system located in glands on the ventral side of the neck to communicate by pheromones. Although the Areiotis had a large eyeball, their visual system functions as a spectrophotometer, allowing them to see the changes in chemical composition within their environment. Culture and Politics At the height of their civilization before their destruction, Areiotis society was organized into a worldwide confederal "coordinating body" made of immediately recallable delegates who served on one of many democratic councils in a nested pyramid arrangement. Communal cities on Areios ranged in size from only a couple hundred to a several hundred thousand inhabitants governed with local legislative councils of voting citizens consisting of 25–50 members. Participation in civic life was nearly universal and local democratic legislative councils would pass the majority of laws governing society. No higher council would be able to override the decisions of a lower council, and the councils would be based on consensus, though majority votes were allowed when issues could not be agreed upon. Each local council would send a delegate to a district council that dealt with matters between councils, until that higher level council filled with 25–50 members in which each district council would send a delegate to a regional council. The higher level councils are responsible for creating laws that affect larger numbers of people. Second level councils would pass laws on matters that affect the 200,000 to 750,000 citizens that it represents. Delegates are sent to higher level councils who in turn send delegates to even higher level councils in a system of nested councils until all of the population is engaged in the political process and a single highest council has 25–50 members. A delegate to a council is bound to communicate the views of their council, but is not bound to vote as the council might wish. However, lower level councils have the opportunity to hold referenda at any time to challenge the decisions of their delegate or the actions of a higher level council. A dispute between legislative councils on the same level would be resolved by a judiciary court. Judiciary councils were formed out of 21 randomly chosen citizens that have three year terms, which would rule on laws passed and would be able to veto them if the court deemed them contrary to individual rights. The three year terms of the council would be staggered: As 7 reached the one year of their term, the another 7 would reach the end of their second year and another 7 would reach the end of their term and be replaced by a new group of 7. The council court was unelected, as elected members were thought to hold the biases of the oppressive majority. Unlike the nested legislative councils, courts would operate on a strict consensus. Only a council court would be able to challenge a local law on ethical grounds. The council court would be responsible for evaluating claims, but the guiding principle would be that those most affected by the decision would have the most say. History The Areiotis civilization spanned over 100,000 years, marked by the period when the first city-states arose until the annihilation of the species in the Age of Pillaging. In the interim, the Areiotis society is divided into three major epochs; antiquity, feudalism, and modernity. The Areiotis of antiquity formed a chain of meridian city-states, ruled by dynastic kings that competed against one another for dominance. While little of the architecture survives to present day, sections of their extensive catacombs still remain intact. The Age of Antiquity (189,000-149,444 BI) was definitively marked by an extensive chain of volcanic eruptions that originated along the southern tectonic plate. Empires collapsed when the volcanic ash disrupted commerce and trade. Bands of Areiotis splintered into smaller, nomadic bands to search for food. The Age of antiquity was noteworthy for the creation of a uniform Areiotis system of numbers and time-keeping as well as a universal system of weights and measures. Sarnam archeologists uncovered these units of measurement when studying the self-replicating machines launched by the Areiotis during their age of exploration that were programmed to terraform new worlds for colonization in the galaxy. The Age of Feudalism (149,445-117,575 BI) is marked by a great migration from the prime meridian of the planet towards the polar regions. Wandering bands of nomads eventually settle into fertile regions all over the globe and establish permanent fortifications. Compared with the Age of Antiquity, the Age of Feudalism is notable for an extended period of isolationism. Feudal Kingdoms become self-sufficient enclaves. The scientific method is first deduced during this period when the Areiotis developed the first mechanical systems, electrical generators, engines, and rudimentary automation, but the Scientific Revolution did not occur until after the end of isolationism. The self-replicating probes that still traverse the galaxy bear an inscription dedicated to the Areiotis Academy of Science founded in the Feudal Age, the only record of the name and birthplace of individuals are referenced in Areiotis society. The Age of Feudalism came to an end with a meteorite impact that struck the equatorial arctic, sending Areios into an episode of protracted nuclear winter. When the climate returned to a more hospitable state, the Areiotis had begun to re-establish commerce and trade, creating a global system of finance and a loose form of international governance. In the Age of Modernity (117,576-84,775 BI), the Areiotis established a global government and began a chain of Industrial Revolutions leading to great technological achievements. Within the Age of Modernity, the Areiotis began the exploration and colonization of other worlds within their solar system and created their greatest engineering feats in terms of scale and complexity. Schematics for these designs were found within the memory of the self-replicating probes, likely serving as a repository of knowledge for any intelligent life that came across the probe in space. The Age of Modernity was put to an abrupt end by the Kiatoc invasion, marking the permanent decline of the Areiotis. Engineering Technology Areiotis ingenuity allowed their civilization to spread across the entire planet of Areios and to colonize two other worlds in their star system. The many of the earliest engineering marvels from the Age of Antiquity did not survive the the numerous calamities throughout recorded history, but three monuments from the earliest epoch of Areiotis civilization still exist. Sections of the elaborate series of catacombs built into the largest mountain range on Areios still exist today. At their greatest extent, the catacombs would have spanned nearly 1,000 square miles (2,500 square km). Areiotis who fled to the catacombs would have likely survived the Kiatoc assault, only to perish from the lack of food, water or breathable atmosphere. These select few were likely responsible for destroying all information about the research and development of traversable wormholes, undoubtedly fearing what the Kiatoc would do with the technology if they had a power source robust enough realize interstellar, intergalactic, or interchronic wormholes. Few citadels or repositories from the feudal age survived, but there are a few notable examples. During the destruction of the Areiotis, Kiatoc weapons produced massive earthquakes that uplifted portions of the ocean floor, including one section of a tropical sea that concealed a sunken city from this age. It remains one of the only preserved archeological sites left after the Kiatoc invasion. The site was noteworthy for an obelisk found within the city center that is chiseled with the same passage in four different scripts, including the Felzari Universal Tongue, allowing the Sarnam to read and translate the many languages of the Areiotis found in the memory banks of the probes. The largest of Areios' three moons takes as much time to rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around planet, much like how the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth. Areiotis took advantage of this arrangement to create the largest single aperture radio telescope in creation, an estimated 81 miles (130 kilometers) in diameter, to minimize the interference from Areiotis transmissions. It was from this radio telescope that the Areiotis first learned of the Kiatoc invasion. Colonization of the Star System During the Age of Modernity, several Industrial Revolutions heralded the greatest technological feats of the Areiotis. The Areiotis became a spacefaring civilization 16,000 years prior to their destruction, but in that time they weren't able to colonize much of their own star system. The greatest project built in terms of planning and resources committed was a orbital solar power array four times the diameter of the third planet from Hemera at the L1 point. The Kiatoc dismantled the solar array and used the raw materials to build up their fleet. Construction of the array began 85,301 BI as the first step towards terraforming the third world from Hemera. Directing icy debris from the outer solar system towards the inner solar system using wormholes, the Areiotis were able to bring vast quantities of water to the third planet while harvesting the metal-rich debris to build the frame of a massive solar array to block a portion of the incoming sunlight from overheating the third world. Areios' atmosphere is too turbulent for most rockets to navigate safely, so the Areiotis did not become a space colonizing civilization until they developed an alternative means to enter space, primarily using 4-dimensional wormholes to first send probes into space. Spurred into action by a meteorite impact that struck the global ocean of Areiotis, creating a massive tsunami that inundated coastal cities, the Areiotis created a colonization program out of a need for self-preservation. These wormholes also provided nearly instantaneous travel, allowing for a more expedient transfer of personnel and materiel in times of emergency. The energy requirements needed to produce such wormholes across interplanetary distances were so great that the Areiotis would often restrict their use of wormholes to shorter distances, relying on a network asteroids, moons, and artificial interplanetary way-stations to transport the Areiotis from Areios to outposts in the solar system. Traversable wormholes A wormhole is a shortcut through spacetime. The Areiotis discovered the means to create wormholes, but lacked the energy requirement and political will necessary to create a network of wormholes between the stars or galaxies in the cosmos. At the height of their civilization, the Areiotis could travel as far as the outer edge of their solar system in a single nexus. However, the vast majority of "jumps" were limited to interplanetary scales, and most treks to the outer solar system required a chain of "jumps" with layovers in strategically-placed way-stations between the planets. Theoretically, given a power source robust enough, traversable wormholes could obviate the need for spacecraft. When the Kiatoc invaded the Areiotis system, the Areiotis reportedly feared what would happen to the safety of the galaxy if the Kiatoc or any other aggressive race were gain access to wormhole technology. Therefore, they went to great lengths to erase all recorded knowledge of the technology. In 89,260 BI, the Areiotis launched their first interstellar probes having encountered, dismantled, and reverse-engineered a Felzari probe that traipsed through the Hemera system. The Areiotis probes were self-replicating machines that were dispatched to search for habitable worlds resembling Areios, in anticipation of an era of colonization when the Areiotis would leave their solar system to join the galactic community. Once a probe discovered a habitable world, it would incubate samples of Areiotis bacteria that would colonize the planet and make it livable for the Areiotis once they arrived centuries later. With the destruction of the Areiotis in 84,775 BI, their probes continue to explore the galaxy, unabated, in search of worlds that resemble Areios.